For
information about current anti-GM campaigns and sources of further
information, visit our links page.

The
DIG IT UP! campaign

The
biotech industry may believe that the "accidental" release
of GM oilseed rape is a fortuitous "accident" that will
make us accept the inevitability of GM crops and GM food in the UK.
We need to prove them wrong.

We
call upon the Government to instruct farmers to destroy all the GM
contaminated oilseed rape crops and to guarantee full compensation
to the farmers who have unknowingly planted them. We also call for
an immediate halt to the current field trials of GM oilseed rape and
the existing plantings to be removed and destroyed.

The
Government has repeatedly assured us that GM crops will not be grown
commercially in the UK until the current farm-scale trials are completed,
but now they have no intention of stopping the "accidental"
commercial growing of GM crops over vast swathes of the British
countryside. This is grossly unjust and a betrayal of public trust
in the Government.

The
cross-pollination between conventional and GM oilseed rape in Canada,
which has led to this contamination, proves the inadequacy of the
buffer zones around the UK crop trials.

The
Government has said that it intends to take no legal action against
Advanta Seeds UK, the company which sold the contaminated seeds.

The
French and Swedish governments have declared that these crops will
be destroyed in their countries. Why not here too?

The
current media coverage of this issue reflects widespread public
anger at the Government's secrecy about the "accidental"
planting of contaminated seeds and anger at its complacency about
the consequences for British farming and the environment.

The
DIG IT UP!campaign
hopes to mobilise the public in an overwhelming show of protest.

We
urge people to phone, email, send a letter, postcard, or anything,
to their MP and to Tony Blair, Nick Brown, Mo Mowlam, Baroness Hayman,
Michael Meacher and MAFF, and also to write to the newspapers and
phone radio stations, always including the demand to "DIG
IT UP!".

These
three words alone will suffice, however, especially when they become
a catch-phrase. The DIG IT UP!
campaign might also include petitions, badges, t-shirts, posters,
'subvertising', demonstrations, a range of other actions - whatever
people's time allows or their imagination suggests.

We
invite everyone who is outraged by this damage to our environment
and the Government's complacency about it to join the campaign.

The DIG IT UP! campaign was
initiated by two members of Scarborough Against Genetic Engineering
on 18th May 2000. We hope that people will join together in
an overwhelming movement to have the contaminated crops removed
and destroyed.

The
"DIG IT UP!"
slogan concisely expresses our demand. These are just three words;
but say "DIG IT UP!" aloud three times
and you will feel its power. Then think how the Government and the
biotech industry will feel after hearing and reading this phrase
thousands of times. It might work. It is certainly worth trying.

Note
added on 05/07/00 (see
diary for daily updates)
The Government has advised farmers to destroy their GM contaminated
oilseed rape crops because it is illegal to grow or sell GM crops
commercially in the EU. Advanta has also advised farmers to destroy
these crops and it has agreed to pay them compensation for their
loss. But it remains the case that:

MAFF
does not know where GM contaminated oilseed rape crops have been
planted.

The
Government has not yet instructed farmers to destroy these crops
before they flower and seed.

MAFF
is not monitoring or collecting any data about the destruction
of GM contaminated oilseed rape crops. MAFF cannot give even an
approximate idea of how many farmers have voluntarily destroyed
those crops.

There
is no mechanism in place to ensure that farmers obey the law by
not selling GM contaminated crops as GM-free.

The
Government has not called a halt to the field trials of GM oilseed
rape, despite clear proof that they must be contaminating crops
in the surrounding countryside.